Technology can be your friend at every stage of a night spent drinking

Drink Local

Input the alcohol on your shelf (plus some ingredients in your fridge) and this jazzy little app will concoct a curated list of drinks you can make with what you own. Save favorites. Browse all recipes. Input your own questionable creations! A true step up from opening 50 internet tabs, peering through drink recipes with meaningless names and trying to figure out if you have the ingredients for a cocktail that probably tastes like trash. "What do you mean I need a can of Pringles, grenadine and a pickle to make a Horny West Virginian Bull?"

WHILEYOU'RE OUTAlcoDroid Alcohol Tracker

Log drinks. Read BAC estimate. Avoid DUI. Total how much money you've spent on drinks if you're into using self-shame as a motivator. Feeling particularly masochistic? Record your drinking habits over time to associate a numerical value with that drinking problem you definitely don't have. A practical hint from my night out using this app: If you have some favorite weird drink along the lines of "my Uncle Tom calls this the rip-your-aunt's-pants-off-vodka-margarita-wine-bomb," do yourself a favor and add that drink as a preset while you're sober.

MAYBE WHILE YOU'RE IN THE UBER GOING HOME? Drink Cocktail Simulator

The concept — a "cool" animation app that fills your phone screen with a simulation of a refreshing cocktail. You can then take a "drink" of your phone (and revel in the splendor of the modern age) as your phone full of liquid tilts and sloshes! Who needs real alcohol now? I have no idea what human being would be motivated to download this, but apparently 10 million people are in on a secret that I'm not understanding. A one star reviews complains "FAKE YOU CAN'T DRINK IT AND IT SAYS REAL SIM," so don't be fooled here. But another review gives us a peek into this app's true intent: "I say to my friends 'I'm really thirsty' then they are like 'do you want me to get you a drink?' then I'm like 'nah I got one right here' and then they're like '...'."

THE HANGOVERDrink Water Aquarium

Reminds you to drink water by filling a cute virtual aquarium every time you hydrate. The peppy dancing fish mock your pounding headache, waves of nausea and looming miasma of regret. Usefulness in regards to a hangover should be obvious. ♦

The original print version of this article was headlined "An App
For That"